Introduction

A quarter of a century after the conclusion of the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS), the international law on trade in services remains in a state of flux: On the one side, countries increasingly conclude regional trade agreements with chapters on trade in services which aim at a further liberalisation of services trade. On the other side, the GATS structure still remains the dominant model and serves as a basis of many preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Yet, new aspects such as electronic commerce, data protection and taxation emerge while issues, which already existed in the mid-1990s such as financial services regulation, labour mobility, and telecommunications continue to be of current concern.